Conceptually, the world can be divided into those with needs and/or desires and people with potential means of satisfying those needs and/or desires. For example, a salesperson may be seeking potential clients. A single person may be seeking a dating partner. A guitar player may be seeking a drummer. A shopper may be looking for a particular item to buy. The difficulty has been in bringing the seekers into close proximity and in providing them sufficient information to allow them to decide if their interests coincide.
Solutions to this problem are sometimes referred to as matching systems and involve varying mechanisms for assessing whether a profile of the problem owner and a profile of a solution owner “match” sufficiently to provide information to at least one of the parties about the other. For example, RFID, GPS, and Bluetooth technology has been proposed to identify individuals with related interests when they are in proximity to each other. If the individuals are sufficiently close to each other, various systems have been combined with profile records to determine if the individuals have interests that “match” and, if so, to facilitate the exchange of location information between the individuals. Ad hoc wireless networks have also been described that facilitate such an exchange. Reference is made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,711,414 and 6,757,719 to Lightman et al., 6,977,612 to Bennet, 6,996,402 to Logan, 6,618,593 to Drutman, 6,419,217 and 6,758,397 to Catan, 7,098,793 and 6,961,000 both to Chung, 6,992,574 to Aupperle, et al., and 7,092,002 to Ferren et al., U.S. Patent Application 2005/0174975 filed by Mgrdechian, et al., U.S. Patent Application 2007/0030824 filed by Ribaudo et al., U.S. Patent Application 2006/0256959 filed by Hymes, U.S. Patent Application 2007/0096909 filed by Lally, and U.S. Patent Applications 2005/0177614 and 2005/0272413 filed by Bourne, all of which are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.
These solutions are generally directed to providing information to individuals having matching profiles. However well designed, such matching systems cannot account for the importance of visual cues and other physiological indicators in determining whether to interact with another person, whether it is for social or business purposes.
What would be useful is an information exchange system that provides visual and physiological cues to users.
In an embodiment, a first user monitor is configured to transmit a first response signal comprising first identification information to a presence detector establishing a presence of the first user monitor within a defined space. A second user monitor is configured to transmit a second response signal comprising second identification information to the presence detector establishing a presence of the second user monitor within the defined space. An interrogator is configured to receive the identification information from the first and second user monitors and to send the identification information to an information server.
In this embodiment, the information server is configured to store a first user profile comprising information associated with a user of the first user monitor and a second user profile comprising information associated with a user of the second user monitor and to receive the information establishing the presence of the first and the second user monitors. If the first and second user monitors are present, the information server is configured to determine whether the first and the second user profiles match according to matching criteria.
If the first and the second user profiles match according to the matching criteria, then send a first matching alert signal comprising a first matching attribute to a first match indicator and a second matching alert signal comprising a second matching attribute to a second match indicator. The first matching attribute is displayed on the first match indicator, wherein the first match indicator is visible to the user of the second user monitor so as to be informative to the user of the second user monitor of the matching of the first and second user profiles according to the matching criteria. The second matching attribute is displayed on the second match indicator, wherein the second match indicator is visible to the user of the first user monitor so as to be informative to the user of the first user monitor of the matching of the first and second user profiles according to the matching criteria. In an embodiment, the first matching attribute is unique to the user of the second user monitor and the second matching attribute is unique to the user of the first user monitor.
By way of illustration and not as a limitation, the user monitor may be an RFID enabled device, a Bluetooth enabled device, a GPS enabled device, and a WiFi enabled device.
By way of illustration and not as a limitation, the first and second matching attributes are selected from the group consisting of a background color, a background hue, a display color, a display hue, a symbol, text, animation, and an animation rate.
In another embodiment, the information server receives physiological data of the user of the first user monitor from a sensor. A bio response processor located in the first user monitor is configured to receive the physiological data from the sensor, determine a measure of attraction of the user of the first user monitor to the user of the second user monitor from at least one element of the physiological data and create an attraction attribute indicative of the attraction measure. The bio response processor then sends an attraction signal to the first match indicator comprising the attraction attribute. The first match indicator displays the attraction attribute so as to be informative of the attraction of the user of the first user monitor to the user of the second user monitor.
In yet another embodiment, the information server receives physiological data of the user of the first user monitor from a sensor. A bio response processor located in the first user monitor is configured to receive the physiological data from the sensor, determine a measure of truthfulness of the user of the first user monitor to the user of the second user monitor from at least one element of the physiological data and create a truthfulness attribute indicative of the truthfulness measure. The bio response processor then sends a truthfulness signal to the first match indicator comprising the truthfulness attribute. The first match indicator displays the truthfulness attribute so as to be informative of the truthfulness of the user of the first user monitor to the user of the second user monitor.
In another embodiment, the information server receives profile information and physiological data from at least one of the plurality of users. The information server determines a measure of truthfulness of the user relating to the profile information from at least one element of the physiological data. The information server then determines whether the measure of truthfulness is equal to or greater than a minimum threshold value. If the measure of truthfulness is equal to or greater than a minimum threshold value, the profile information is stored. If the measure of truthfulness is less than the minimum threshold value, then the profile information is rejected.
By way of illustration and not as a limitation, the physiological data are selected from the group consisting of a heart rate, a measure of blood pressure, a measure of breathing rate, a measure of skin resistance, a measure of body temperature, a voice pattern, and a measure of brain electrical activity.